Page 122 of Mate
He doesn’t flinch away or deflect. Just nods. Admits, “I did, Serena.”
I shake my head. Try to wipe at my cheeks, but it doesn’t work. There are too many tears coming.
“How do you feel, Eva?” Irene asks, odiously kind.
“I don’t know. I . . . I . . .” I cannot look at Koen. Don’t want to. “I’m sad. And I’m . . . I’msoangry, and you don’t even— She was mymother, the only person who ever cared about me, and you don’t even remember if you fuckingkilled her— ”
I stop at the noise of something sliding across the mahogany. Blink through the tears. Watch it, incongruously pink and cutesy against the paper of my mother’s letter.
It’s the knife. My knife. The one Koen gave me to protect myself. The one I used against Jess. How did it end up here?
“How angry are you, Serena?” Irene asks. “At this man who murdered your family in cold blood? He took away your childhood and your home and didn’t even stick around long enough to make sure that you were taken care of. If he hadn’t killed Fiona, the three of us could have been together. There would have been no orphanage. No Vampyres. No Northwest.You could have been happy. But Koen took that away from you. So let me ask you one more time . . . How angry are you?”
“I’m not— ” I start, shaking my head— and then stop.
Slowly, I let my eyes settle on Koen. His quiet expression betrays none of the turmoil I’m feeling. How angry am I?
A lot. Alot.
“Here.” The knife makes its way into my hand, already unfolded. “This man was angry, and he hurt you and your family. Now that you are angry, what willyoudo, Eva?”
This is a dream. A nightmare. I can’t be awake as I clutch the plastic handle and walk around Irene’s chair, dazed but determined. But I know what I must do.
I know that it’s right.
Someone drags Koen’s chair to the side to give me better access to him. Four hands keep him still, pinned to the chair, but there’s no need. Koen isn’t thrashing or wriggling away. There is no pleading, nor an attempt to convince me that I’m overreacting. He sits quietly, looking up at me like I’m a queen. His life and death are but my decision. He wouldn’t dream of objecting. If I want to carve his heart out of his chest, he’ll crack his rib cage open and lie prone for me.
My hands tremble, but not too much. I can do this. I can.
“Youcando this,” Irene reminds me. “You are owed.”
I nod. This is my right. “I’m sorry,” I whisper at Koen, letting the tip of the blade graze the soft spot on the side of his neck. I’ve kissed that spot. Licked it. Buried my face in it.
I adjust my grip.I’m sorry, I think.
With a firm swipe, I slice the ropes that tie his wrists together.
CHAPTER 31
The girl was small. He’d have put her around three, but the Humans said she was older than that. At the time he knew little of children and nothing of Humans, and so he believed them.
She clung to him, her little arms skeletal around his neck. Her scent had a strident, chemical note, as though she had been given something that would keep her docile. “It’s what they did with the other kids, too,” the social worker told him grimly.
The child was asleep in his arms, and as he handed her over, he wondered,Is all of this a mistake?But when the Human took her, he noticed that his hands had stained the girl’s shirt a bright green.
AFTER A LIFETIME SPENT DISSECTING HIS PARENTS’ DECISIONS, Koen was bound not to replicate their mistakes. I blame the fever and the drugs for not having realized it earlier, but it all starts making sense when several large wolves jump into the room.
Through the windows.
Theclosedwindows.
I count four, then everything turns into pandemonium. Rainfalls of shattered glass. Toppled furniture. Screams and growls and the bone-snapping sounds of the shift. It happens so quickly, when a strong arm loops around my waist, my first reaction is to strike back.
Then I realize who I just hit, and gasp. “Sorry!”
“Fucking sharp elbows,” Koen mutters. Jess and another of the guards who brought him in are lying at his feet. The third is outside, being chased by a rust-colored wolf. Jorma.
“Where did Irene go?” he asks the only cult Were who hasn’t shifted. “Don’t make me repeat myself. Where the fuck did— ”
